Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future: mcommerce

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Silicon Valley Series: Customer Analytics, Personalization, Privacy and Context

In this Silicon Valley Series I was honored to interview a number of very smart and experienced Silicon Valley dignitaries on a variety of important business trends, technologies and strategies. I hope you find this series of short interviews useful.

In this episode, I have the honor of learning from Silicon Valley veteran CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), brand and digital marketing expert, Mark Lewis (Twitter @marklewis_sf). We discuss the latest trends and strategies in personalization, opportunities and privacy challenges.

In 2016, total worldwide retail sales reached $22 trillion, of which digital commerce makes up $1.9 trillion, or 8.7% of the total. While the majority of retail sales still occur in brick-and-mortar stores, overall growth is predominantly driven by digital commerce, which was expected to expand rapidly worldwide at a 23.7% growth rate in 2016, and by 2020 to represent 14.6% of total retail spending of $27 trillion. Of course, digital commerce numbers vary depending on the product category. Online sales penetration for many product types – electronics, apparel, furniture, home improvement, etc. – are significantly higher than worldwide retail sales projections, while categories such as petrol, convenience and grocery have a much lower penetration.

In the U.S., sales at department stores fell almost 6% in 2016, while online retail sales rose 11%. As a result, bricks-and-mortar retailers have been forced to re-evaluate their business performance, and many, such as Sears, Macy’s, Aeropostale, Chico’s and American Eagle, have needed to close stores. Still others – especially those who have failed to digitally transform – are going out of business altogether, including The Limited and Wet Seal. In an industry with razor-thin margins and intense competition, missing out on key growth opportunities are a ticket to irrelevancy, or worse.

Given the rapid rise in digital commerce, retailers are increasingly concerned about profitability since online sales are believed to contribute to margin erosion. In fact, some retailers fear that an over-reliance on digital technologies will dilute margins. These concerns, however, are not supported by our research. Rather, retailers with strong to very strong revenue growth, which we correlate with digital leadership, also tend to realize higher profits.

Retailers have enjoyed consistent revenue growth through their digital channels for the last several years. This growth is expected to accelerate into the foreseeable future. In fact, retailers are increasingly dependent on digital commerce growth as sales soften through traditional channels. In fact, 22% of retailers in our study said they generate 30% or more of their sales from digital channels. By 2020, 79% of retailers forecast they will receive 30% or more of their sales from digital channels, a massive 259% increase.

Nearly all retailers (98%) achieve at least some of their revenue through digital channels today; most respondents anticipate much of their future growth to be driven by digital commerce. Retailers with exceptionally strong (11%-plus) revenue growth already derive a higher percentage of their sales from digital channels, according to our research. These retailers also forecast a more bullish future than lower performing retailers. You can download the full report, "How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards" here.

Watch the 3-minute video on digital thinking in retail.

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Measuring the Pace of Change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Technologies help us deliver on a business strategy. Without a strategy, there is no rationale for deploying technologies. In addition, there is no rationale for digital transformation, unless there is a need for business transformation. If you believe this as we do, then strategy development will be a priority. Strategies, however, are developed under the guidance of a doctrine. The purpose of a doctrine is to create a high level understanding of what we we want to achieve with our strategy, and the concepts that must be employed to achieve it. An organization’s doctrine will guide strategy development, and the tactics needed to achieve a goal.

An example of a doctrine is, "We will be a fast follower, and excel at quickly manufacturing and delivering popular fashions." With this doctrine, the company can now develop strategies that align with the doctrine.

Many executives consider digital transformation important, but an IT issue. We, however, believe IT serves only one purpose – supporting the needs and strategies of the business. If the business doesn’t perceive a need, or have a business strategy that requires digital transformation, then there is no transformation role for IT to play. All of our research, however, concludes that organizations must be engaged in business and digital transformation or they will fail at winning in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Digital doctrines and strategies must come from the top, as they require an intimate understanding of the goals, doctrines and strategies of the organization, and the resources available to achieve them. Grassroots efforts to transform a company will fail, as they are too slow to compete against engaged, focused leaders.

Leaders must have an intimate understanding of how markets are changing, by how much, and the technologies that are supporting these changes. We all watched as advertising and sales expanded quickly from brick and mortar locations, to search engines, to online auctions, mobile retailer apps/websites, and now to online classified, online markets and sharing economy platforms. Do we fully understand consumers' path-to-purchase journeys in these evolving digital environments? Do we understand where traditional path-to-purchase journeys intersect with digital journeys? One thing we do know for certain, as a result of our research, is that consumers are altering their buying habits to take advantage of the convenience, market feedback and in-depth product information available in these mobile and digital markets. The need now is to measure how fast buying habits and shopping behaviors are changing, which is not easy. Many new behaviors and trends are outside of traditional measurements.

An additional challenge for leaders is measuring the pace of market change, and aligning resources and priorities to ensure we are changing, if not at the same pace, at least at a pace ahead of our competition. What units of measurement will capture the speed of change? What data sources will provide the data necessary for analysis, and how do we capture the data? Once we have a methodology in place for measuring the pace of market change, how do we then measure the pace of our own changes inside our organizations and in those of our competitors so we know how we are doing?

Download my latest report, "How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards."

Watch the 3-minute video on digital thinking in retail.

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards

George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, once said, “You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.” In our latest research on the future state of work in the retail sector, we find many industry executives struggling to imagine where the future is leading them and their organizations, not to mention the role digital technologies will play along the way.

Traditional retailers are challenged by rapidly emerging new business models, such as Amazon Go and Facebook’s launch of its digital commerce platform, Marketplace. Moreover, pioneering companies in the sharing economy (i.e., Uber) are expanding from their initial markets into areas such as food delivery, while insurgent retailers, such as Sun Basket, are combining digital and social media platforms, mobile apps and massive volumes of new data to encroach on retailers’ territory. These nontraditional competitors are changing the rules of the retail game via disruptive strategies.

To better understand the strategies and technologies that digital transformation requires, Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, surveyed 500 executives from the retail industry across 18 countries, in partnership with renowned economist Nouriel Roubini. Sadly, our research shows a significant number of retailers making decisions and forming strategies based on outdated attitudes, fears and misunderstandings. Given all the hype around digital, and the available data on its increasing importance, it is surprising to see enormous and persistent differences in thinking between retail’s digital leaders and laggards.

Digital leaders tend to experience higher revenue growth, and their attitudes about digital technologies suggest they will keep their leadership position. Their perspective on how retail jobs and work will be transformed as a result of digital is also more evolved, as are their ideas on the vastly new and enhanced skills that will be needed to support tomorrow’s retail environment.

Digital laggards see an alternate reality. They place far less importance on digital technologies and their future role, and they show higher levels of fear and concern about digital overall. Our findings reveal a reluctance among laggards to digitally transform their thinking, IT infrastructures, doctrines and business strategies. If they remain on this track, their companies could find themselves in dire straits.

This report digs deeply into the differences in thinking between digital leaders and laggards, as well as between high- and low–revenue-growth retailers, and highlights strategies that can be employed to achieve and maintain digital leadership. We also delve into the role that “mental constructs” and personal attitudes play in separating retailing’s digital leaders from laggards. We explore how the thinking of digital leaders results in differentiated strategies, greater returns and improved results. We reveal the differences between leaders and laggards in their digital technology investments, and then analyze how leaders believe digital implementations should be sequenced between now and 2025. We also scrutinize the perceptions of frontline retail managers in terms of the mistakes they believe are being made by executives when it comes to digital transformation.

Download the full report, "How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards."

Watch the 3-minute video on digital thinking in retail.

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his strategies and thoughts here:

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

The New Mobile Shopper - Latest Research

I am deep into researching mobile consumer behaviors at this time, and am amazed at the impact that mobile technologies are having on us - especially millennials.

Here are some examples from my research:

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, shop online far more frequently than those using only desktop/laptops. In fact, mobile shoppers purchase online once or more a week at a rate 82% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, conduct research late at night, at a rate 46.1% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, check store inventories late at night at a rate 66.7% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online selected "ease of navigating the website or mobile app" as a top factor that influenced their decision to purchase online from a particular retailer/website at a rate 42.2% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online selected "the ability to buy/reserve online and pick-up in store" as a top factor that influenced their decision to purchase online from a particular retailer/website at a rate 53.4% greater than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, report they have shopped for an item in a store, but purchased it online from a different retailer, at a rate 22% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

This data came from Cognizant's 2015 Shoppers survey of 5,000 people. It shows that people accustomed to using mobile devices to shop online for products and services represent a category of shopper that behaves very differently than traditional desktop/laptop online shoppers. Retailers and etailers that don't account for these differences with customized/personalized digital experiences will lose to competitors that do.
I will be finishing this research and publishing a major study on this data in the next few months.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Mobile Consumer Behaviors - The Seven Essential Questions

Digital Transformation is the process of updating your business and IT infrastructure to align with today's and tomorrow's consumers. Today that is important, but hard to do. Mobile consumer behaviors are changing far faster than most IT budgets and initiatives and that can cause problems. If your customers are adopting technologies and changing their path-to-purchase journeys at a pace that is faster than you can deliver, then you are opening up an opportunity gap for a more nimble competitor.

Do your internal sales and executive strategy sessions begin with these questions:

Where are our customers to be found?
What technologies are our customers using?
How are our customers' path-to-purchase journeys' changing?
Are we meeting our customers along their path-to-purchase journeys and supporting them?
Are we digitally transforming at a pace that will keep us aligned with our customers' pace of change?
Is our IT budget aligned with the required pace of change?
Are we re-engineering business processes to align with required digital transformations and mobile consumer behaviors?

According to comScore's quarterly State Of Retail report, in the first quarter of 2014, 78 percent of the U.S. population age 15 and above bought something online. That percentage is expected to continue to grow. In addition, BusinessInsider.com reports the key age group of 18-34 year olds spend nearly $2,000 per year online now. In addition, in a recent Experian survey 55 percent of e-commerce shoppers in the U.S. live in households with incomes above $75,000 (40 percent were in households earning $100,000 and above). We are into serious numbers worthy of our attention.

The point has been made. We all recognize there is a lot of money to be made catering to online shoppers. The problem is - just when many companies thought they had their e-commerce capabilities and strategies under control, consumer behaviors change. How? They jumped to mobile devices in the form of smartphones and tablets for much of the path-to-purchase journey. In fact, in our analysis over three-quarters of path-to-purchase journeys are already completed before vendors are contacted, and much of it was completed using mobile devices. If a retailer waits to be contacted before attempting to influence, they have missed the boat. If marketing campaigns are desktop/laptop centric, they have missed key opportunities and demographics to influence. If customers don't contact vendors until late in the path-to-purchase journey, then how can retailers effectively influence buying decisions? They need to understand consumer behaviors in general, and mobile consumer behaviors in particular.

In a recent survey I conducted of 108 business and IT professionals, all purchased products and services online. Of those, eighty-nine percent purchase products and services online using mobile devices (smartphones and/or tablets). However, when asked what means they typically use for online purchases, thirty-nine percent answered desktops/tablets, twelve percent mobile devices, and forty-eight percent answered both desktop/laptop and mobile devices regularly. This data highlights the fact that many mobile consumers still wait to purchase products online using desktops/laptops even if they researched the products on smartphones and tablets. The use of multiple devices and computers in the path-to-purchase process highlights the need to support customers across all channels to ensure they have a beautiful and consistent customer experience. This is not easy as there are a lot of moving parts and technologies involved.

To add to the complexity retailers face, different parts of the path-to-purchase journey are favored on different devices. Yikes! On-the-go searches and quick information discoveries are favored for smartphones. Just search for a product or service and save the link. In-depth research and rich product comparisons are often done on tablets with bigger screens. For online purchases, consumers still overwhelmingly use desktops/laptops as they are assumed to be more secure. Understood? Don't, however, forget that many consumers still only use desktop/laptops and their behavior is different. In fact, Cognizant just completed its 2015 Shoppers Survey of 5,000 people and forty-three percent typically only use computers for online shopping activities.

How often do people use mobile devices to make online purchases? From my recent survey (108 business and IT professionals):

Daily 1.8%
Weekly 28.7%
Monthly 43.5%
Quarterly 19.4%
Yearly 5.5%

What time of day do consumers shop using mobile devices? Here are the top three times from my recent survey ranked in order:

Early morning
Mid morning
Early afternoon

Seems simple. Focus from 6 AM to 2 PM in each time zone, right? Wrong! When you look at different mobile consumer behaviors by age, there are considerable differences. That means if you are selling to an older age group, they have very different online and mobile consumer behaviors than 18-24 year olds. The younger age groups spike upward in online shopping late at night, after all of us old people are asleep in bed. Besides, desktop users find shopping in bed quite painful after a few minutes.

What location are mobile consumers at when they shop online? That depends on what stage in the path-to-purchase they are in. Here are the most popular locations for mobile consumer shopping from my recent survey ranked in order of popularity:

Home - living room
Work - desk
Home - bedroom
Home - TV room
Coffee Shop/Restaurant
Commuting - automobile/taxi/train/airplane/subway

If this mix is not rich enough, let's add gender differences! In a November 2014 study conducted by Burst Media and Rhythm NewMedia titled Online Insights - Mobile Shopping Behaviors, it was found that among respondents who use mobile device(s) inside a physical retail location to help with the shopping experience, 58.3 percent were women and 47.7 percent were men. That difference is meaningful.

I will stop here for today. I am writing a lengthy report now on all the details of these studies. If you would like to review these findings in detail and arrange a briefing, please contact me. The bottom line is that consumers' path-to-purchase has been significantly impacted by mobile devices and if retailers and etailers are not in step with these changes, they will lose to competitors that are.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

In this new report titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, I ask 80 IT and business professionals involved in enterprise and consumer mobility to answer a series of questions. The results will be shared here in the following article series. This is Part 3 in the series.

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, An Introduction
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2

Question: Do you (or your clients’) have IT systems that are too slow or incapable of supporting real-time mobile application requirements?

Click to Enlarge

Eighty-four percent report IT systems in their inventory that are completely incapable of supporting real-time mobility. It is important for enterprises to take inventory of their IT systems and to thoroughly understand which systems can support real-time mobility, and which cannot, and then analyze the cost of non-support. This inventory must be reviewed alongside forecasted technology and market trends and the actions of competitors. The pace of change, in many cases, is faster than current planning and budget cycles, and without bold action the ability to successfully compete in the future diminishes.

Click to Enlarge

Question: Will your (or your clients’) IT environment and back office systems prevent you from delivering an optimized mobile application experience?

Optimized mobile applications are viewed as key to the future success of businesses, yet 43% report IT environments and systems that will prevent them from delivering an optimized user experience. This data should be viewed with the seriousness it deserves and should serve as a call to action.

Recent studies find that mobile application users are impatient and only willing to wait for 3-5 seconds for a mobile application to load before abandoning it. Many never to return. This is significant as a higher percentage of commerce is moving to mobile applications.

Question: How important is the speed of a mobile application to the overall user experience?

Click to Enlarge

All survey participants identified mobile app speed as being “Important.” 80% said it was “Very Important.” Mobile applications by their very nature are often in the hands of a moving user. Location and time are key data points used to establish context in many mobile apps (e.g. this morning’s weather in Boston). No matter how great a mobile application design - delays in retrieving or interacting with back-office business or IT systems equate to negative user experiences and must be resolved.

Benchmarks for acceptable mobile application responses and speeds should be established and used to detect troublesome systems early. Some speed issues may be related to app design or Internet connectivity, but often the problems are in the back-office IT environment and require extensive efforts to alleviate.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

IT and Data Security and the Risk to Christmas and the Global Economy

Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves. ~ Genesis

I have a sizable collection of books in my library, in fact I have a tower of books in my office that is a danger to small children. Many of the books in my collection are on the topic of technology strategies for businesses. This collection represents a passion I have for connecting business strategies and new technologies together to improve business performance. I have, however, learned over the years that with new technologies comes new vulnerabilities that must be considered as part of the adoption strategy.

Today, 27 missiles can destroy our entire commercial global GPS system, and another 2,465 missiles or laser attacks could destroy every active satellite we have in orbit. That represents a new and emerging vulnerability to our digital economy.

We have seen demonstrated this year that private and government sponsored hackers can bring down markets, transportation systems, communication networks, financial systems and utility grids. We have seen this month how cyber-attacks, suspected to originate from North Korea, can dramatically impact an entire industry (Entertainment). Cyber-attacks are fast becoming the weapon of choice for countries and organizations with limited funds and military capabilities. It is a way to maximize the damage they cause for the investment - a kind of bad guy ROI.

Experts believe that for impoverished North Korea, expanding its warfare into cyberspace is an attractive choice because it is cheaper and faster to develop malicious computer codes than to build nuclear bombs or other weapons of mass destruction. Online attacks can be performed anonymously, another upside for the infiltrators. - AP By: YOUKYUNG LEE, December 18, 2014

For all the benefits technology enables, it also makes us more vulnerable to computer and software failures and cyber-attacks (See Flights Disrupted After Computer Failure at UK Control Center).

Philosopher and Urbanist Dr. Paul Virilio said, "To invent something is to invent an accident. To invent the ship is to invent the shipwreck; the space shuttle, the explosion. And to invent the electronic superhighway or the Internet is to invent a major risk which is not easily spotted because it does not produce fatalities like a shipwreck or a mid-air explosion." ~ An Interview with Paul Virilio." in: Apres Coup Psychoanalytic Association. January 2005.

Today, however, fatalities can result from problems with the Internet and associated systems because they touch so many important systems including healthcare systems (see http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/12/12/nr-dnt-feyerick-cyber-security.cnn.html). We have placed nearly all of our systems of importance on the Internet and into the cloud. Our military runs on a network centric strategy and our economy as well. Cyber-attacks today are a most serious threat.

Dr. Virilio identified the fact that all new technologies include new and guaranteed accidents or vulnerabilities. It doesn't mean we don't pursue them, it just means we need to acknowledge the associated risks, prepare for and manage them.

We are hearing a constant drum beat of the successes hackers and cyber-attackers are having in their attacks on our financial and payment systems, and the theft of our personal data. When will this become a true priority for "C Level" folks? It is not just their own companies CEOs are risking today, every interaction and transaction connects businesses to individuals. Our personal data is now intimately tied to the companies we do business with, and as recent events have proven our data is now in real jeopardy.

Shouldn't we, as customers, be looking to penalize businesses with poor IT security practices and systems? In a world where our data is currency, the protection of our data is vital. It is a personal and national security issue. We need a understand the importance of IT security and data to global economies, and then take the necessary steps to protect them.

The original industrial accidents as, for instance, the derailment of a train or the crash of an airplane, were all specific, localized, and particular accidents. They were taking place at a certain place and at a certain moment in time. Now, however, the revolution of instantaneous transmissions brought about by telecommunications makes the accident global." ~ Virilio Paul and Andreas Ruby (Interviewer). "Surfing the Accident. in: Institute for the Unstable Media. Publication "The Art of the Accident." 1998. (English).

I have seen steps in the right direction. In 2011, the United States military designated certain kinds of cyber-attacks as "acts of war" that would be treated as such.

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official. SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES, May 31, 2011

I am no fan of war, as I have a son in the military, but we must recognized the seriousness of attacks that cripple our country's infrastructures, economy and security.

As a passionate mobile industry analyst and enthusiast, I am eager for us to solve these cyber-attack and data security issues. We clearly have a massive global problem that needs solved, and the solution is not just a series of small start-ups with clever technologies. It is bigger than that. It is a global economic and security issue. It needs the highest levels of emphasis and collaboration.

We need to be the vanguards of IT security and data protection. What are the steps needed? Here are some ideas to consider:

Elevate defense against cyber-attacks to a corporate, IT, economic and national security priority.
Recognize cyber-attacks are not just an individual company's IT problem or inconvenience, it is a national economic and security issue.
Measure executive's on their company's IT and data security practices and performance and base their compensation packages at least in part on these measurements.
Encourage all companies to prioritize IT and data security, and to educate IT staff on how to best respond to cyber-attacks.
Develop standards for IT and data security practices.
Motivate companies to meet these IT and data security standards by certifying them and publishing the results.
Encourage consumers to support certified businesses.
Organize independent IT and data security auditors that certify businesses against these standards.
Enforce stiff penalties against countries protecting organizations involved in cyber-attacks.

The digital economy is growing exponentially, but cyber-attacks, left unchecked, will halt the digital economy like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas [data].

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Digital Transformation and Code Halos - 12 Trends that are Impacting Banks Today

The banks of the future, will not look like the banks of today.

I have met with the business and IT strategy teams of many banks around the world over the past 12 months. These discussions have been some of the most interesting as there is a sense of urgency. The banking and financial services industries are feeling tremendous pressures from both internal and external sources to respond quickly to emerging mobile and online technologies, and the changing behaviors of consumers.

Here are 12 talking points from my latest workshops:

Mobile and online technologies are transforming the way banks serve clients
Mobile banking adoption rates will reach 33 percent this year, up from 20 percent in 2011. Source: Swacha
Mobile payments will reach $90 billion by 2017, up from $13 billion in 2012. Source: Forrester’s 2013 US Mobile Payments Forecast report
60% of smartphone or tablet users who switched banks in the fourth quarter said mobile banking was an important factor in the decision. Source: AlixPartners
Consumer preferences are changing and a generational shift in behavior is driving to new digital channels
There is a rapid adoption of digital consumer banking in both developed markets and in markets where consumers are predisposed to using mobile technology rather than bricks-and-mortar (emerging markets)
Banks are being presented with new competition from non-financial firms providing financial services
The ability to innovate will be a key competitive differentiator, and innovation a critical driver of growth in the future for banks
Uniform experience (omni-channel) will be required across all channels, and is a prime factor in customer satisfaction
There is a growing convergence of personal financial management tools and mobile banking
After providing basic consumer banking services on mobile apps, the next steps are to understand individual consumer’s transactions, and the nuances of their unique investment behavior using Code Halo strategies
Banks are seeking efficiencies and cost reductions. The average cost of a mobile transaction is 10 cents, about half that of a desktop-computer transaction and far less than the $1.25 average cost of an ATM transaction. (Source: Javelin Strategy & Research).

Mobile apps are rapidly replacing branches as the preferred form of customer interactions with banks. Customers are evaluating the quality of a bank based upon their mobile banking capabilities today. In customer service surveys, providing great mobile apps represents an important component of customer satisfaction. As a result, you would think that budget priorities and investments in mobile technologies would be jumping up in response, but as of today, budgets for mobile apps and mobile banking services represent less than 5% of IT budgets.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Silicon Valley Series: Customer Analytics, Personalization, Privacy and Context

Analyzing Retail Through Digital Lenses

Measuring the Pace of Change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards

The New Mobile Shopper - Latest Research

Mobile Consumer Behaviors - The Seven Essential Questions

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

IT and Data Security and the Risk to Christmas and the Global Economy

Digital Transformation and Code Halos - 12 Trends that are Impacting Banks Today

Interviews with Kevin Benedict

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